Deep South

Starred review from February 28, 2000
Since 1993 and Track of the Cat, Barr has been writing about National Park ranger Anna Pigeon. Each novel has been set in a different park, but one constant has been how the gutsy and deeply independent Anna has drawn her strength from, and maintained her sanity by, living among some of the most glorious and remote landscapes in America. Now, having decided that she needs to think about her financial future, Anna has snagged a promotion to district ranger. The catch is that she must leave her beloved Western parks behind and move to the Port Gibson section of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. There's no wilderness here, and she feels overwhelmed by the humidity, the streams of tourists and campers and the ever-encroaching kudzu vines. But then Anna discovers one teenage girl in a prom dress dead drunk in an old cemetery and another murdered in the deep woods of the Trace, with a KKK-type hood and noose tied over her head. Anna and the local sheriff uncover plenty of suspects and motives as they team up to investigate. As the first woman ranger in the district, Anna must also learn to deal with male subordinates who challenge her authority. Whether Anna, for whom the solitude of the wilderness has always been essential, can find her equilibrium remains to be seen. But Barr produces another suspenseful and highly atmospheric mystery, illuminated even in this new setting by her trademark lyricism in writing about the natural world. Author tour.

In this episode of Nevada Barr's popular series, Park Ranger Anna Pigeon has been promoted and reassigned from Mesa Verde, Colorado, to the Natchez Trace National Park in Mississippi. As is par for Anna's course, murder occurs almost immediately upon her arrival. Anna must also deal with disgruntled staff and alligator attacks. Narrator Barbara Rosenblat turns in the virtuoso performance that listeners have come to expect. She distinctly renders the Deep South accents of whites and blacks; men and women; old, middle-aged, and juveniles. However, frequent and audible intakes of breath before sentences are annoying. R.E.K. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

June 15, 2001
Barbara Rosenblat here narrates her seventh Anna Pigeon mystery. This time Pigeon travels to Mississippi to take up a new job as a district ranger, and Rosenblat is given the opportunity to display a whole new range of accents. She skillfully uses appropriate Southern accents and various timbres to delineate ages and sexes of characters. The setting on the Natchez Trace Parkway is key to both the mood and the plot. Pigeon helplessly contrasts the vigorous verdancy of Mississippi with the sparse desert of her most recent home, New Mexico, as she tries to get her bearings and solve a tragic death on the Trace. Pigeon is a stranger in a strange land, yet her Southern experiences fumbling into her new role as supervisor; adjusting to humidity, kudzu, and mud; facing the death of a teenage beauty queen; wrestling with an alligator in her carport; drinking early morning coffee with Confederates in her campground; guzzling whiskey with peanut butter sandwiches in a truck with a sympathetic colleague; and feeling a reluctant attraction to the local sheriff (also an Episcopal priest) are colorful and absorbing. Recommended. Juleigh Muirhead Clark, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Lib., Colonial Williamsburg Fdn., VA

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.